Are you an ENTJ, also known as "The Commander"? If so, you possess remarkable personality traits that can significantly influence your career choices and success.
Among the 16 Myers-Briggs personality types, ENTJs are known for their strategic thinking, leadership abilities, and penchant for taking charge of situations. They are motivated by success, relevance, and contribution to the greater good. These traits also affect their fulfillment in their respective careers and job roles.
For these natural-born leaders, their careers are just a means to an end. Their passion for having a successful life drives them to make fearless career decisions to help them reach their goals. Most ENTJs would be considered as having a strong personality.
If these traits seem to define who you are, or perhaps you've taken an MBTI test already, you must wonder, "What are the best ENTJ jobs for me?" In this article, we set you on a journey of self-discovery to unveil how the unique qualities of ENTJs can help steer you toward a prosperous and fulfilling career path.
If you've struggled with enjoying a job in the past because it seemed limiting to your big goals, read on. We've curated some industries and job roles that will help you reach your goals and have fluid and progressive opportunities fit for you.
However, you should note that we are all unique, even as ENTJs. Hence, you may have little interest in these job roles even when they are a perfect fit for other ENTJs. You should also check out John Holland’s Theory of Occupational Choice to get a more personalized guide to choosing a career that takes into consideration your professional interests.
Now, let's delve in!
The ENTJ In the Workplace — Strengths and Weaknesses
Your strengths and weaknesses are unique traits that set you apart as an ENTJ employee. And understanding where your strength lies and where you’re lacking is crucial to finding the right career or job role.
As an ENTJ, you may be every CEO’s dream employee because you are:
- Open to constructive feedback: You don't shy away from corrections and constructive criticisms, which plays a role in your growth.
- Competence: You prefer to be considered reliable. When people think of who can get the job done, you'd love your name to come to mind.
- Excellent decision-making: Your intuitive traits let you see the bigger picture and the possibilities of an idea, making you suitable for decision-making roles.
- Analytical: As an analytical individual, you enjoy problem-solving roles or anything that lets you show off your critical thinking abilities.
- Ambitious: Over everything, growth is essential to you. You are more likely to flourish in an industry or role that constantly makes room for career growth and evolvement.
On the other hand, you may not be fan-favorite among your colleagues because you may show:
- Dominating trait: Because of your strong will and natural sense of leadership, you may struggle with taking instructions.
- Bluntness: As someone who welcomes criticism, you expect others to do the same, which can make you seem insensitive.
- Need for Challenge: As an ENTJ, you easily get tired of monotonous responsibilities and activities. You love a good challenge now and then, which may be a problem in a slow-paced industry.
7 Top Careers and Job Roles for ENTJs
Considering your strengths and weaknesses, here are some careers that we've found relevant to your values and goals as an ENTJ. It's also important to recognize that career preferences can vary based on whether you lean toward the assertive ENTJ-A subtype or the more introspective ENTJ-T. While these subtypes share a lot in common, there are also some substantial differences. ENTJ-As often excel in roles requiring bold decision-making and high-pressure leadership, while ENTJ-Ts may thrive in environments that allow for careful analysis and adaptive strategies.
With these nuances in mind, let’s explore some top career paths that align with the core strengths of ENTJs:
Auditing
Auditing is an aspect of finance that deals with analyzing complex financial documents to identify instances of fraud. Aside from the educational requirements, this role also requires skills like attention to detail, critical thinking, and logical decision-making abilities, which are common traits in ENTJs.
ENTJs can also endure the intense focus needed for auditing processes as they are self-sufficient individuals. Some job roles in auditing to consider are financial auditor, forensic accountant, tax analyst, IT auditor, Internal auditor, etc.
Management
Managerial roles involve a lot of planning, organizing, problem-solving, and impeccable leadership skills— all of which are natural traits in ENTJs. People with the commander-type personality are also highly efficient and tend to take the lead in a team.
If you an ENTJ considering a role in management, you can explore the following: business manager, project manager, sales manager, or talent manager.
Health Care
While ENTJs may not be the most emotional of the 16 MBTI personalities, they are purpose-driven. They love it when a more significant sense of duty is attached to their job role, and healthcare jobs give them just that.
There are hundreds of healthcare roles, but an ENTJ will likely lean towards more technical careers like pharmacy technician, diagnostic medical sonographer, radiologic technologist, medical transcriptionist, surgeon, etc.
Human Resources
Human Resources (HR) is responsible for overseeing all operations and policies that affect the employees and partners of an organization. While roles in this field require some level of empathy, they also need strict and logical decision-making ability, which an ENTJ has.
One thing that will set you apart in the HR industry is your competence. Your ability to see a problem and be proactive about finding a solution will be handy in human resource roles. Some HR roles for ENTJS to explore are human resource director, HR assistant, recruiter, employee specialist, etc.
Politics
Being an extroverted individual with excellent leadership qualities, an ENTJ will thrive in politics. Your good sense of judgment and need to contribute to the greater good will give you an edge in this career.
In addition to prominent political roles (presidency, governor, or senator), other political positions for ENTJs to explore include campaign manager, activist, analyst, legislative aide, political consultant, political risk analyst, etc.
Architecture
ENTJs love a career so complex that it continues to thrill them even after years of practice, and architecture is one of them. It is the art of designing and constructing buildings. It requires analytical and problem-solving skills, intuitiveness, discipline, and organizing abilities.
Some interesting architectural roles for ENTJs to consider are architect, urban planner, landscape architect, structural engineer, building surveyor, fire risk accessor, etc.
Entrepreneurship
Some ENTJs, who have reached the peak of their careers, view starting their own business as the only option to go further. It becomes the most reasonable thing to do after gaining a wide range of knowledge, experience, and connections in their field.
So, if you consider this your next career path, one trait that will set you apart is your intuitiveness. It is the ability to see the potential in people and ideas. As an entrepreneur, your business can span across different industries. Niches you can explore are digital startups, hospitality, landscaping and construction companies, marketing agencies, etc.
Careers ENTJs Should Avoid
While your resilience and ambition let you fit into most work environments, you may not enjoy the "wrong" career for long.
Below are some industries that may not give you total career satisfaction.
- Counseling: As someone who prefers to take the lead, you may not enjoy counseling roles where you must tailor your sessions on your client’s terms.
- Art and Graphic Design: While you may enjoy the adventure of an art career, you may not enjoy the constant need for change and creativity.
- Writing: Writing may be a frustrating career for someone as goal-driven as an ENTJ. To this personality type, creative writing is like a steep road with no end. It takes a painful amount of discipline to finish writing a book.
The Trick To Finding a Winning Career as an ENTJ
You must take advantage of your natural strengths to get the best out of your career and life. For example, your innate hunger for success helps you get your foot in the doors to job roles that others feel are off-limits. Use this as a vantage point to explore the above careers until you find the one that gives you the fulfillment you seek.
Reading this, but don't know if you are an ENTJ? Take a Meyer-Briggs indicator test to find out!
